February 26, 2009

by Damozel | Ha ha, is there anything funnier than a Republican "rising star" when he or she actually succeeds in getting people to listen -- that is, really listen? Exhibit A being, of course, Sarah Palin.

Exhibit B would be Bobby Jindal, who made a nationally televised speech in response to Barack Obama's that got him compared to Kenneth the Page. For his pains, he has been "roundly panned" -- and not just by Democrats. Can even Rush Limbaugh, who defended him, save him now?

Conservative commentators were among the harshest critics, calling Mr.
Jindal’s delivery animatronic, his prose “cheesy” and his message —
that federal spending is not the answer to the nation’s economic
problems — uninspired.

And those were the good reviews.

Laura Ingraham,
the talk radio host; David Brooks, the New York Times columnist; and
Juan Williams of Fox News were among Mr. Jindal’s unimpressed reviewers
in television commentary...(NYT)

Partly this is because Jindal (unlike, say, rising star Sarah Palin) speaks in comprehensible sentences, too many of which -- from the standpoint of living-in-denial Republicans, I mean -- were conciliatory and acknowledged the validity of the many, many reasons why most Americans have repudiated the GOP.

“He went in there with high expectations, probably too high for any
politician,” said David Johnson, a Republican political strategist.
“Republicans are looking for a voice to lead them out of the
wilderness.”

Still, Mr. Johnson said, “it was a flop.”...

In his speech, Mr. Jindal said Republicans would work with Mr. Obama
in areas where they agreed with him, and he offered a kind of apology
for his party. “You elected Republicans to champion limited
government, fiscal discipline and personal responsibility,” Mr. Jindal
said. “Instead, Republicans went along with earmarks and big government
spending in Washington. Republicans lost your trust, and rightly so.”...

Bobby Jindal's rebuttal to the president's Congressional address tonight sounded creepily like a monologue from Kenneth the Page, 30 Rock's bewildered hillbilly...Jindal just couldn't quit with the wide-eyed "aww, shucks," Howdy-Doody
delivery, apparently rehearsed in front of a Kindergarten class. His patronizing tone — and most of all his
resemblance to the Kenneth character — has already become a full-fledgedbloggermeme.

For purposes of comparison, Gawker's got a video of Jindal and one containing random Kenneth Purcell quotes. It is uncanny. And you can hear Kenneth the Page's response to the internet response here. (For the record, Kenneth is offended by the comparison.)

Thers at Whiskey Fire compares Jindal to Gilligan rather than Kenneth.

Hey, look at me. Both my parents were from a foreign country, not just my father. Neither, however, were from Africa.
The stimulus bill doesn’t create jobs because the new cars bought for
the government will be built by elves and fairies, not real workers.
Also, that train to Las Vegas, it will be built by elves and fairies
too. How else do you think it will “levitate”? And who do you think is
going to monitor the volcanoes? Elves and fairies, I tell you. Oh, and
another thing, tax cuts don’t create deficits. Vote for me in 2012. God
bless Louisiana.

And before he even opened his mouth, Tweety at MSNBC was heard to mutter, "Oh God." Hear him say it here!

After offering-up the latest GOP lie that $8 billion of the stimulus was line-itemed for "a ‘magnetic levitation’ line from Las Vegas to Disneyland" in last night's widely-panned speech, you'll never guess where Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA)travels today:

After giving one of the biggest speeches in his time as a politician, Gov. Bobby Jindal is heading to Disney World.

Jindal's office says the governor and his family leave for the Orlando vacation resort today.

Of course, Jindal has his defenders as well as his detractors. Rush Limbaugh, for example, is outraged at Jindal's Republican critics.

Rush Limbaugh insisted that conservatives who noticed Jindal's awful speech should keep their mouths shut:
"[I]f you think -- people on our side I'm talking to you -- those of
you who think Jindal was horrible, you think -- in fact, I don't ever
want to hear from you ever again.... I've spoken to him numerous times,
he's brilliant. He's the real deal."...

The far more fascinating response came from blogger Ann Althouse, who noted the "instinctive revulsion" towards Jindal.

Why are all these people so confident that they are not manifesting racism? There's just something about this man that doesn't seem right,
that you don't care to examine exactly what it is, but you know it deep
down in your gut somehow. Seriously. How do you know this is not racism? [italics in the original](Steve Benen)

Unlike Althouse apparently did, I didn't notice anything about him "that doesn't seem right" or feel any "instinctive revulsion." I just think his speech sucked.

Gov. Jindal's stories of self-reliance were inspiring. Like Michelle Malkin, who is a big fan
of his, he is an anchor baby whose parents arrived here from India to
exploit our lax immigration laws but nevertheless proved that people
who are different races can be successful if they make an effort to fit in and act like real Americans....

[W]hat really inspired me was the story he told about how people in leaky
little boats tried to save the citizens of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
even though government bureaucrats tried to stop them. If the
government had stayed out of New Orleans entirely and encouraged more
people to use their boats or to make their own boats out of things
around the house, more people would probably be alive today. And
instead of waiting for inefficient government workers to fix the
levies, ordinary New Orleans citizens could have patched them up using
bubble gum and duct tape and good old American know-how....

[I]nstead of relying on the government to build magical magnetic
levitation trains, the people of Las Vegas should be encouraged to
bring some tools from their garages and build the train themselves, the
way the Amish do. And while it's true that the magical levitation part
might prove to be technologically difficult for the average Las Vegas
citizen, if they all put their minds together and pray, I bet they
would be able to levitate the trains. The power of prayer worked for
Gov. Jindal when he and a few friends exorcised
some demons and cured a woman of cancer back when he was in college so
it could probably work for trains, too. And praying may also be the
answer to our health care crisis.

And instead of having
bureaucrats build roads and bridges why not let people build their own
roads and bridges? With all of the companies laying off people and
outsourcing jobs to Gov. Jindal's native country, there are plenty of
people with time on their hands looking for something to do during the
day. It would give people a sense of accomplishment and distract them
from worrying about how they will pay the mortgage or pay for health
care for their children.

Comments

He's getting mau-maued by the usual libtards and some RINOs on a good speech substantively that could have been helped by elocution and stye points. Palin was charismatic, but not so hot on policy and also got nailed.

And Althouse is right, the Dems and Repubs are both racists.....[that was what she was hinting at, The things that made her "uncomfortable" are the Indian tics that made it so easy to condescend to "Slumdog" & give it Oscars.

Sadly No! is an out-and-out racist since Jindal made no mention of anyplace else but India. Like his "libtard" pals....